Pearls and Tears
by milkmoth
Summary: Finnick and Katniss find that they have more than just survival in common, although that's important, too . Katniss and Finnick gen.


They cope in their own ways. The numbing embrace of alcohol. The lonely fortress of the mind. Finnick finds his haven, as always, in wakefulness; a state harder to maintain away from the lights and buzz and white, powdery energy pill of the Capitol.

He feels his eyes drooping. _Keep fighting, Finnick. _Haymitch snores in the chair on the wall. Even in the dark, Finnick sees Betee's back to everyone, his face to the wall, his fingers tracing patterns that only he understands. His voice, mumbling nonsense.

To keep himself awake he listens to Katniss. _Possibly the only other sane person on this hovercraft_, he thinks. She sleeps in the fetal position, something which came as a bit of a surprise to Finnick. He expected her to lie like a soldier. Sit half asleep. Something of the sort. The drugs._ Must be those._ Haymitch pumped her with so much of whatever-it-was that she could hardly speak before she slumped down. He makes careful note of her murmurs, hoping to keep himself awake in the process. Sometimes she cries out in her sleep. Mostly for her other half, the second tribute from District 12. Her crying chills him. Good. It will keep him awake.

She goes silent after her cries. Finnick _knows_ that he must stay awake, or he will nightmare, as well. So he compares himself, ten years ago, to the newest male victor. He thinks of the boy's blue eyes, good looks (not a match for Finnick's), kind smile. Finnick realizes what is so unsettling about Peeta, and why Katniss has always been his favorite tribute from 12: Peeta remains far too young and untainted, even after making it through the arena.

She mumbles again. A new nightmare is staring up. Maybe this time she is re-facing the monkeys, or the Careers from her first Games.

"Don't," she cries, audibly. "Give him-"

Neither – she's begging them not to take Peeta. The government, then. It makes sense. _It won't help, _he thinks, _they're even more powerful in your own imagination. They do things they wouldn't do in reality. And there are things they do in reality that you can't dream in your worst nightmares. _He remembers his first night in the city. The celebration, the lights. How his heart ached away from Annie, from his home, from his family. Everything felt cold and dry. At the same time, he wonders what they do to the boy in her dreams. Maybe they do the same things to him every night that they do to Annie. _Annie. _Finnick feels his eyelids falling, and an image of Annie sparks to his eyes unbidden and fully-formed, like a photograph or a hologram or maybe just the most painful of memories: her long hair wet and shining, a laugh in her eyes, her teeth a flash of imperfect, beautiful pearls. He runs to her. He knows he must save her before the Capitol comes to take pluck all the pearls out of her mouth.

_Can you count to thirteen?_

She only looks at him, smile still on, eyes confused.

_Come on, Annie – one, two three…_

_Four, _she says, a whisper.

_Right, right – _he's suddenly excited – _five, six…_

She opens her mouth, but nothing comes out.

He grows desperate. _Seven, eight…_

_Where is the water, Finnick?_

She remembers his name. It's a good day. _No, no, that's not the point. _

She looks sad. _Where's the water?_

And then she turns and she's floating, her brown hair fanning out around her like seaweed. For a moment he's relieved she's found the water. Then he gets scared. Annie's floating away from him. He splashes to reach her. The water gets deeper. He flips her over, but when he does her face is no longer hers – it puckered and wrinkled like a raisin in the water, and he realizes with distress that it resembles the face of Nona, the morphling victor. She's so cold. He puts his arms around her, desperate to warm her, but cold she remains.

He spooks, suddenly afraid that he holds the wrong Annie – a dummy, a trick designed by the Capitol – and when he backs away, there's blood on his hands. Blood. A cloud, in the water, all around Annie. She has a three pronged stab in her side. He tries to get a better look, to see if this is really what he thinks it is. _A trick, _he tells himself, _only a trick._ And he can't even see Annnie anymore; everything blurs and darkens and goes red, red, red. Drowning – he – _he – _is drowning. He screams, but he can't, he's drowning, and, oh, he's lost, he's really lost this time, he's let them trick him, because this isn't _real _water -

He wakes up gasping for air. In a few moments, still half-asleep, he realizes it was a nightmare. Another trick of the Capitol.

After a few minutes and a few deep breaths, he looks up.

From across the room Katniss – who is sitting straight up – looks back at him with pity.

No.

Sympathy.

* * *

Minutes from District 13 , they all sit in silence. Mostly because Katniss and her family are too nervous and upset to say anything.

He sits next to Haymitch and an unusually silent Beetee. Beetee's still out of it. Haymitch insists that they continue to drug him, calls him 'fragile'. Finnick think that if Beetee is fragile, they should all be drugged. Maybe it would help with the forgetting, anyway. They are all victors, kings and queens of death and shameful triumph. They are all royally fucked up.

He examines Katniss Everdeen. She clutches a little bead, occasionally turning it between her fingers. Finnick notices. He notices because he likes watching people, and making note of their quirks, and because he has particular interest in Katniss Everdeen.

Katniss' little sister sits disquietingly still next to Katniss on the seat, with her blonde, wispy head against her sister's shoulder. Mrs. Everdeen sits next to daughter, posture rigid, her face a tear-stained mess. Finnick wants to comfort her, but he hasn't tried. He's tired of trying, of maintaining smiles and quips. He's maintained them for ten years. He thinks it has been long enough.

Katniss' 'cousin' (Finnick can tell different by the way the boy leans toward her, though no one has seen fit to tell him otherwise) sits on her other side. She ignores them all. Her opaque eyes stay trained on the little bead she rolls between her fingers. The hovercraft gives a slight shake. They've landed. Finnick alone sees the bead lurch out of Katniss' fingers, catches the moment of distress that shines through her grey eyes.

"We're here," Haymitch announces, as though they are too simple to see this themselves. By the cold look Katniss gives Haymitch, Finnick supposes that his hate for Haymitch has good company. He glances at the scratch marks that pucker Haymitch's face. His lips inadvertently form a small smile as he bends down.

As they depart, Finnick hangs back and presses the bead into Katniss' palm. He recognizes it now. A pearl.

"Thanks," she says, voice low. He's surprised she's speaking to him. Until that point she had remained – understandably – hard-eyed and tight-lipped.

"My pleasure."

He catches the frown out of the corner of his eye. "I think it's the drugs – the sedatives," she says. "They're affecting my grip."

She flexes her hand around the pearl. The thoughts of Annie that he's tried to dam flood back in: him, her, looking for pearls. The recurring dream in which President Snow personally yanks out her pearl teeth, one by one by one, until she feels too much pain to even scream. Tears wet her face. He hides the chill that works up his spine.

"I don't think your friend likes our proximity," he whispers, trying for a smile. Katniss doesn't even bother to glance at the dark-haired boy behind them, or to deign Finnick's comment with a proper answer. No matter. The words bring Finnick back to himself for a moment –or at least, what he's known of himself for the past ten years.

The stand in silence. A waiting silence. He can taste the hopes of all the people in District 13, of all the revolters throughout Panem. He feels sure that she can, too. He wants to spit it out. It's no use without Annie. She's gone.

"You know… if you apply enough pressure to coal, it becomes pearls." She gives a faint smile. Only in her lips. Nowhere else.

He doesn't remind her that she said that to him before. Maybe she knows. "No, that's not how it works."

She shrugs. Avoiding his eyes, she seems to take note of the fact that she's still in yesterday's clothes, but with a slight alteration. She stares at it for a while before she moves. When she does, she removes the infamous token from her shirt. "Haymitch," she mumbles, and she hides it in her fist along with the pearl.

Her shoulder brushes against him as she squeezes out of the hovercraft's exit.

Finnick wonders whether anyone outside the arena can understand the constant loss and terror and bitterness that Katniss feels. He wonders, not for the first time, how they will get out of this alive. Safety appears eminent, but he doubts that it will remain so for long, not with the Capitol out for blood. Not for the first time since the beginning of this ordeal, he hopes with all his heart not for himself – not even for Annie – but for the girl in front of him, the mockingjay, to survive this ordeal.

"May the odds be ever in your favor," he whispers.

She catches it, and laughs.


End file.
